Kant's Position Research Articles

Should we be Kantians? A Defence of Empricism (Part Two)

In his book Mind and World (1994), John McDowell defends the Kantian position that the content of experience is conceptual. Without this Kantian assumption, he argues, it would be impossible to understand how experience may rationally constrain thought. But McDowell's Kantianism is either false or empty, and his view of the relation between mind and world cannot be stated without transcending the bounds of sense. McDowell's arguments supporting the Kantian thesis, which are very different from Kant's arguments, essentially involve a fallacy of ambiguity. In order to understand how thought may be rationally constrained by experience we should become empiricists.

La morale kantienne et la philosophie transcendantale

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to discuss the transcendental status of Kant's moral philosophy. Despite what is usually thought among scholars, we intend to demonstrate that morality for Kant is not part of transcendental philosophy. We shall at first recall the reasons that have driven Kant to separate morality from the transcendental philosophy. Kant's position seems both firm and clear: morality, although involving a priori concepts such as the moral law, is not a transcendantal knowledge because its major concept, the will, is not pure enough; it refers somehow to experience. On the other hand, after considering the positions of renowned scholars such as Gueroult, Delbos, and Höffe, who claim that Kant's morality became partially or totally transcendantal since the writing of the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, we suggest that Kant had then found the right way to establish on a critical basis a future metaphysics of morals.

God and Kant’s Ethical Commonwealth

The Thomist 65 (2001): 67-92 GOD AND KANT'S ETHICAL COMMONWEALTH GORDON E. MICHALSON, JR. New College ofthe University ofSouth Florida Sarasota, Florida At one point in his recent history of modern moral philosophy, J.B. Schneewind refers to Immanuel Kant's "astonishing claim" that "God and we can share membership in a single moral community only if we all equally legislate the law we are to obey."1 Schneewind's remark is intended to illuminate his wider story about what he calls the Kantian "invention" of autonomy. In Schneewind's telling of this story, Kant's claim is "astonishing" because of the clear suggestion that autonomy has replaced obedience as the basis of the moral life, a transition that marks a decisive moment in the secularization of ethics in the modern period. Considered theologically, however, Schneewind's remark is simultaneously suggestive of a fundamental alteration of the traditional view of divine transcendence, an alteration implicit in the modern effort to ground morality in something other than the will of God. The vision of a moral community in which God and finite moral agents equally legislate the law probably implies that God is subject to a moral principle that can be understood apart from reference to the divine will alone. The leveling process at work in the notion of a "shared membership" in the moral community is at the same time an erosion of the distance separating heaven and earth, the transcendent and the immanent. This subterranean linkage between Kant's ideal moral community and an implicit 1 J.B. Schneewind, The Invention ofAutonomy: A History ofModem Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 512. 67 68 GORDON E. MICHALSON, JR. loss of divine transcendence is in fact one of the most powerful and least understood aspects of Kant's philosophy. The moral community in question is what Kant will ultimately refer to as the "ethical commonwealth," which is the refined version of what he had earlier referred to in the Founda.tions of the Metaphysics ofMorals as the "kingdom ofends."2 Kant defines the ethical commonwealth as a union of rational agents living under moral laws, which is to say, "laws of virtue."3 As the contrast case to a political or what Kant calls a "juridico-civil state," the ethical commonwealth depends upon self-legislation rather than on external coercion for its maintenance and regulation. The point of the distinction is amply conveyed by Kant's admonition to all who would attempt to legislate morality: "But woe to the legislator who wishes to establish through force a polity directed to ethical ends," as it "would be a contradiction ," Kant warns, "for the political commonwealth to compel its citizens to enter into an ethical commonwealth, since the very concept ofthe latter involves freedom from coercion."4 The main reason Kant's position holds such theological interest is that his notion of "freedom from coercion" includes freedom from any conception of a divine will that is not itself subject to the same legislative principle that governs all members of the ethical commonwealth. What Schneewind refers to as Kant's "astonishing claim" is in fact Kant's effort to envision a kind of moral partnership between God and humanity, a project that leaves traditional conceptions of divine transcendence in a complex transitional zone. My aim in what follows is to examine further the nature of the divine-human partnership involved in Kant's conception of the ethical commonwealth, with a view to clarifying the status of divine transcendence within his position. A primary textual clue for this clarification will be a series of important shifts in Kant's 2 Immanuel Kant, Foundations ofthe Metaphysics ofMorals, trans. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959), 55. Hereafter Foundations. 3 Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits ofReason Alone, trans. Theodore M. Green and Hoyt H. Hudson (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960), 87. Hereafter Religion. 4 Ibid. GOD AND KANT'S ETHICAL COMMONWEALTH 69 thinking occurring between the Critique ofPractical Reason and Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, works separated by five years. These shifts reveal the connection between the increasing importance ofthe moral community and the decreasing importance of...

Historical and philosophical reflections on patient autonomy.

Contemporary American medical ethics was born during a period of social ferment, a key theme of which was the espousal of individual rights. Driven by complex cultural forces united in the effort to protect individuality and self-determined choices, an extrapolation from case law to rights of patients was accomplished under the philosophical auspices of 'autonomy.' Autonomy has a complex history; arising in the modern period as the idea of self-governance, it received its most ambitious philosophical elaboration in Kant's moral philosophy. In examining the Kantian construction, it is evident that neither his universal moral imperative nor his rigorous application of self-legislated ethical action can sustain our own notions of moral agency in a pragmatic, pluralistic society. But the Kantian position is useful in highlighting that self-governance is not equivalent to 'autonomy,' and this distinction defines the limits of autonomy in the clinical setting. A critique of Engelhardt's idea of 'principle of permission' is used to illustrate autonomy's eclipse as a governing principle for medical ethics.

Should We Be Kantians? A Defence of Empiricism (Part One)

In his book Mind and World (1994), John McDowell defends the Kantian position that the content of experience is conceptual. Without this Kantian assumption, he argues, it would be impossible to understand how experience may rationally constrain thought. But McDowell's Kantianism is either false or empty, and his view of the relation between mind and world cannot be stated without transcending the bounds of sense. McDowell's arguments supporting the Kantian thesis, which are very different from Kant's arguments, essentially involve a fallacy of ambiguity. In order to understand how thought may be rationally constrained by experience we should become empiricists.

Comment on Gorner

In his incisive and provocative analysis, ‘The place of punishment in Kant's Rechtslehre’, Paul Gorner discusses many aspects of Kant's position. I concentrate on his main contention:Kant's justification of judicial punishment simply does not fit the account of right he gives in the Rechtslehre. According to this account the only justification for coercion is that it constitutes a ‘hindering of a hindrance’ to freedom. But there is no way in which this requires punishment to be retributive.

Sensibility and Transcendence in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics

In Sein and Zeit (= SZ), Heidegger mentions only very briefly connection with his project of a fundamental ontology. In fact, with exception of his critical discussion of Cartesian account of senses, Heidegger offers only a single, laconic sentence which he explicitly brings together status of and of human existence.' Consequently, apparent paucity SZ of any detailed thematic elaboration concerning significance of what may broadly be termed the has led many to claim that this aspect of human existence is ignored by Heidegger. And yet, Kant and das Problem der Metaphysik (= KPM), a work immediately following Sein and Zeit and very much concerned with same fundamental questions as earlier work, problematic surrounding what could be called an ontology of sensibility occupies a position that is far from being merely tangential. We find instead that reflections on nature of very much inform core of problematic pursued throughout KPM. In Heidegger's retrieval of Kant, bodily nature of human existence, which this book falls under rubric of sensibility, is neither ignored nor eliminated from of Dasein.2 Heidegger understands Kant's project Kritik der reinen Vernunft (= KrV) to be ultimately an one: it is an inquiry into essence and possibility of transcendence and knowledge.' In sense used by Heidegger, transcendence names fact that entities are given to human existence not as they are in themselves, but rather always terms of their beingness. Heidegger demonstrates his interpretation of Kant that is essential to possibility of transcendence insofar as forms site of correspondence or conjunction of essence (ontological structure) of finite knower and essence (ontological structure) of entities. In other words, understood its (rather than merely empirical) significance is both a condition for possibility of our finite access to entities as well as a condition for possibility of entities themselves appearing their beingness. In language of SZ site which encountering of entities becomes possible is called world (SZ 65ff.). And insofar as forms this correspondence which entities are encounterable, we can say a specific sense that is world. The presentation of will be carried out two steps: after some brief preliminary comments I will situate within grounding of metaphysics. I will show this section that meaning of resides finitude's full import for question of transcendence. I will then establish that is a necessary element structure of transcendence, and I will show how ontological forms site of correspondence for structure of knower and structure of known. Preliminary Comments A few preliminary comments are order regarding both what Heidegger is up to KPM as well as what my thesis entails vis-a-vis Kant's critical philosophy. To begin with, position Heidegger puts forth KPM should by no means be understood as a faithful account of what Kant's own position is. Although Heidegger is writing on Kant, Kantian philosophy is more of an occasion for development of Heidegger's own thinking than an exegetical goal of his text. Because Heidegger is more concerned with problem of metaphysics (KPM 301f.) than he is with what Kant explicitly understood of this problem, he does not try simply to Kant right. On this point Heidegger is very clear: not only does he say that he will not follow Kant's own paths of thinking-he prefers instead to expose original impetus (KPM 70/47) driving problematic and to get at unsaid set before our eyes Kant's explicit formulation (KPM 201/137)-but he also freely concedes violence of his interpretation relation to Kant's expressed philosophy (KPM Preface to Second Edition, 202/138, 302). …

More on the Sociology of Science—and a Note on Kant's Position

More on the Sociology of Science—and a Note on Kant's Position

The misuse of Kant in the debate about a market for human body parts.

Passages from the writings of Immanuel Kant concerning how a person should treat her body are often cited in the present-day debate about a market for human body parts. In this paper, I demonstrate that this has been a misuse of Kant because unlike those who cite him, Kant was not primarily concerned with prohibiting the sale of body parts. In the first section, I argue that once these particular passages are understood against the background of Kant's moral philosophy, they indicate he had much broader concerns relating to the correct moral relationship a rational person should have with her body. In the second section, I examine Stephen Munzer's unusually detailed analysis of these passages, but conclude that like those who have provided less detailed analyses, he also fails fully to understand the rationale for Kant's various prescriptions and prohibitions concerning the treatment of human body parts, and in doing so misrepresents Kant's position.

The Rise of Russian Neo-Kantianism: Vvedenskij's Early ‘Critical Philosophy’

This essay is a study of Vvedenskij's works starting from his 1888 dissertation up to the turn of the century. I attempt to show that although his explicit aim was to update Kant's philosophy of science in light of developments in physics in the 19th century, Vvedenskij departed considerably from Kant's position with respect to both first philosophy and reflection on the achievements of the natural sciences. Vvedenskij's increasing concern with practical philosophy in the 1890s led him to correct a perceived anomaly in Kant's position by postulating a time in itself, an unrecognized consequence of which would be to undermine the apodicticity of mathematics.

Classical Aesthetics, Modem Ethics: Lacan, Kierkegaard, Sophocles, Anouilh

Ethics and Aesthetics I: Lacan, Kierkegaard, Sophocles, Anouilh foseph S. Jenkins Ethical conclusions are often affected by aesthetic factors. This is a phenomenon all the more important where these factors influence decisions unawares. Faced with a problem so broad in scope—as broad as human nature itself—it is futile to seek the one formula or conclusion. Rather, I propose to explore the intersec­ tion of ethics and aesthetics in a number of localities, hoping that in the continuing course of these potentially separate encounters some meaning may be made. I begin this first paper of the series with an interpretation of Jacques Lacan's Seminar VII. This Seminar provoked controversy in its radical break from the traditional Aristotelian/Kantian line of ethical analysis. Instead of seeking the highest good, Lacan prof­ fers ethics as a consideration of the relationship between an action and the desire that inhabits it (Lacan 359,361). He proposes that the tragic sense of life—the triumph of being toward death—is the proper dimension of ethical consideration (361). By relating ethics to the high aesthetic of tragedy, Lacan speaks to the intersection I seek to explore. The Seminar imparts no coherent description of the intersec­ tion; statements from various chapters must be assembled and interpreted. Part One of this paper takes on that project, based on my translation of Alain Miller's published transcripts. Part Two is a study of the Creon figure depicted in the Antigone plays of both Sophocles and Jean Anouilh. Lacan uses Sophocles's Antigone as his tutor text for research on both ethics and aesthetics, while Kierkegaard sees the two fields as strictly separate. By comparing those views in the context of Anouilh's post-war tragedy, I inves­ tigate aspects of the ethics/aesthetics intersection more specific to the late twentieth century. PART ONE Lacan's principal writings on aesthetics are contained in a Section of Seminar VII entitled The Essence of Tragedy. Remind­ ing us of Kant's position that the category of the beautiful can be

SCEPTICISM AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

AbstractIn this paper I explore a justification for transcendental idealism that emerges from the dialogue with philosophical scepticism in which Kant is on and off engaged throughout the Critique of Pure Reason.1 Many commentators, most prominently Strawson, have claimed that transcend‐ ental idealism is an unfortunate addition to the Critique, one that can profitably be excised in the interests of clarity and coherence.2 Against this general picture I urge that transcendental idealism is in fact a very natural consequence of some of the central doctrines of the Critical Philosophy. It is in the context of Kant's debate with scepticism that this emerges most clearly. Nonetheless, I argue that Kant's employment of transcendental idealism against the sceptic is seriously compromised by his postulating the existence of unknowable things‐in‐themselves. As long as he maintains that there are unknowable things‐in‐themselves which are responsible for our having the experience that we do have, his position seems to collapse into sceptical idealism. In the final section of the paper I suggest that the only possible escape from this difficulty would be to rule out the possibility of affirming that unknowable things‐in‐themselves exist. I also suggest that an argument to this effect exists in the Critique and that Kant's position would be more consistent had he adhered to it.

The possibility of judgement: moralizing and theorizing in international relations

International relations is one of the areas of social science which most clearly brings home the tensions involved in the dual relation of inquirer to object of inquiry, as both scientific observer and moral judge, particularly in times of war. As social scientists, we are required to understand and explain our object, as moral beings, we are required to judge or evaluate it. Received wisdom in international relations premises the possibility of the former on its rigid separation from the latter, so that the understanding of, for example, war, is necessarily distinct from the question of the justice or injustice of war. The former is the task of the science of international relations, the latter task is within the province of the moral philosopher or the normative theorist. I will be arguing in this article that this separation of the realms of morality and politics, on which so much social science and moral philosophy is founded, can be traced back to Kant's critical philosophy, and that this separation has problematic consequences for the possibility of both explanation and evaluation in the international sphere. My argument falls into three parts. In the first part, I will put forward a condensed reading of the Kantian critical position and the problems that it poses. In the second and third parts, I will demonstrate how the discussion of international relations both in moral philosophy, and in political theory, is constructed by the Kantian morality/politics dichotomy, and how this limits and distorts both our moralizing and our theorizing. One contention in the third section of the paper will be that even the recent challenges to traditional international political theory, posed by critical theory and post-structuralism, are in danger of slipping back into a reliance on the morality/politics division, in spite of efforts to overcome it.

Is There a Distinction between Reason and Emotion in Mencius?

The contrast between reason and emotion has played a crucial role in the moral psychology of the Western ethical tradition.' If we turn to Mencius in the Confucian tradition, however, there seems to be no such contrast of comparable importance. Mencius does not, as Plato and Aristotle do, employ the contrast between reason and emotion to assert the need for the primacy of reason. He takes neither the Humean position of denying nor the Kantian position of affirming the motivational efficacy of pure practical reason.2 What stands out in Mencius' work is the absence of any to-do about the issue of reason versus emotion. A plausible explanation is that he never thought about the distinction between reason and emotion in the general way required by these issues. But failing to think of such a distinction may be a simple omission, with no further implications for either Mencius' philosophy or the viability of the distinction, or it may be that his philosophy supplies good reason for omitting such a distinction. I intend to argue for the latter possibility. Mencius held a picture of the role of emotion in moral motivation that militates against a general separation of reason from emotion. In particular, this picture implies that having an emotion such as compassion can involve the recognition of reasons to act in certain ways. The connection between emotion and recognizing reasons to act has important implications for what our larger conception of practical reason ought to be. This conception not only helps to shed light on Mencius, I shall argue, but is a plausible one on its own merits.3 In 2A:6 of the Meng Tzu four innate tendencies in human nature are identified as the fonts of the four major virtues. Mencius identifies the subject of each tendency as hsin, which stands for both the heart and the mind. The hsin that is sensitive to the sufferings of others is the beginnning of jen or benevolence. The hsin that feels shame and dislike is the beginning of i or righteousness. The hsin that feels modesty and courtesy is the beginning of li or propriety. The hsin that senses right and wrong is the beginning of chih or wisdom. Can we classify these tendencies as either affective or rational in nature?

Hegel's Critique of the Subjective Idealism of Kant's Ethics

Hegel's Critique of the Subjective Idealism of Kant's Ethics SALLY S. SEDGWICK 1. In paragraph 135 of the Philosophy of Right Hegel formulates his well-known objection to the "empty formalism" of Kant's theory of morality: "[I]f the definition of duty is taken to be the absence of contradiction," he tells us, "... then no transition is possible to the specification of particular duties nor, if some such particular content for acting comes under consideration, is there any criterion in that principle for deciding whether it is or is not a duty."' One could try to defend Kant against this objection by proposing that Hegel's reading is merely in need of supplementation. ~ Had Hegel read beyond the first formulation of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork and interpreted it in light of the other two, for example, he might then have understood Kant's definition of duty to indicate more than just an arbitrary "formal correspondence" of the will with itself, or "absence of contradiction." And had he included in his acquaintance with Kant's project of providing for the foundation of morality a consideration of the latter's effort to outline the specification of the moral law in the form of a doctrine of rights and duties (in the Metaphysics of Morals), he might not have been so ready to dismiss the categorical imperative as an effective guide to action. 1 G. W. F. Hegel, Hegel's"PhilosophyofRight," trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952);GrundlinienderPhilosophiedesRechts,vol. 7 of Werke,2ovols.,ed. by Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 197o).All references to this work citedhi~reafterin parentheses, PR. 2 See,e.g., T. M. Knox, "Hegel's Attitude to Kant's Ethics,"Kant-Studien49 (1957): 7~ I wishtothank KarlAmeriks,BobFogelin,TerryGodlove,ManleyThompson, and anonymous readers fortheJournaloftheHistoryofPhilosophyfortheircommentsonan earlierdraftofthispaper. [89] 9 ~ JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 26:1 JANUARY 1988 One might respond to Hegel's critique in this way, and argue that it is precisely in virtue of the content that the categorical imperative does have that it can neither be appealed to to universalize any maxim we please, as Hegel thought, nor be taken to require of us a form of universal philanthropy (almsgiving, for example3) which, in failing to discriminate among the diversity of human needs and capacities, leads to its own annulment. One could further show, I think, that an extension of what Kant gave us as a very general outline of the application of the categorical imperative (containing duties "of man to men"4) can indeed be carried out in the for of an "applied ethics," without violating the principles of his "pure moral philosophy.'5 As worthwhile as these projects are in clarifying and developing Kant's position, I don't believe that they succeed in silencing the Hegelian objection. They would succeed were it the case that Hegel's portrayal of the standpoint of "Moralit~it" in the Philosophy of Right depended simply on his neglect to note any distinction between the idea that I remain logically consistent in my adherence to any maxim I choose to adopt, and all that Kant intended in the command that I not contradict the law of practical reason. 6 Far more seriously, however, Hegel believed that the latter in Kant reduced the former. And on this interpretation it then followed that Kant was at fault~not for failing to carefully formulate the content of the categorical imperative and then complete its specification in the form of a doctrine of duties--but for presuming that any such specification could be carried out objectively. As is clear in the Philosophy ofRight and elsewhere in his discussions of Kant's ethics, Hegel was convinced that the very nature of Kant's "abstract" derivation of the moral law from pure reason was responsible for its "emptiness" both as a determinate guide to action and as an objective gauge of moral worth. On this view, the "formalism" of the Critical philosophy could produce no better than the inevitable corruption of the categorical imperative into a license for subjective arbitrariness--reducing ethics to the "special theory of life held by the...

Kant's Categories of Reality and Existence

Since its appearance, and up to the present, Kant's table of categories has met, by and large, with a take-it or leave-it attitude. A recent defense of Kant in this journal' trying to exonerate him from the charge that he adhered to something like degrees of being or existence argued very much in the spirit of Kant's general position but regrettably weakened its case by perpetuating a most awkward terminological ambiguity, with a proposed solution that can hardly serve Kant's cause. is the meaning of his distinction between reality and existence? Kant's first category of Quality is Realitdt, reality; his second category of Modality is Dasein-Nichtsein, existence/non-existence.2 The latter has a propositional spin-off in the second cardinal proposition of the Postulates of Empirical Thought Generatim.4 This postulate runs: What is

The Non-Moral Element in Kant's ‘Moral Proof’ of the Existence of God

In a discussion in this journal of Kant's ‘moral proof’ of the existence of God Peter Byrne describes what he takes to be the ‘fundamental incoherence’ of Kant's position. Kant, it is well known, wishes to hold together two claims concerning our epistemological relationship to God: the claim that we can have no ‘theoretical knowledge’ of God's existence; and the claim that we nonetheless have ‘moral certainty’ of God's existence. The first claim arises out of the Kantian criticism of the pretensions of speculative metaphysics, a criticism developed most rigorously in the Critique of Pure Reason. The second claim, in turn, arises out of Kant's so-called ‘moral proof which appears in skeletal form in the firstCritique and acquires more detail edelaboration in the Critique of Practical Reason.

Hypocrisy and the Highest Good: Hegel on Kant's Transition from Morality to Religion

Hypocrisy and the Highest Good: Hegel on Kant's Transition from Morality to Religion R. Z. FRIEDMAN SHORTON ARGUMENT,rich in ambiguity, Kant's contention that the moral facts of our experience require a religious framework is an important moment in the relationship of philosophical thought and religious belief. The most thorough and penetrating criticism of Kant's position is found in Hegel's "The Moral View of the World" in the PhenomerwlogyofSpirit.There Hegel argues that Kant's position is built on contradiction, not simply that it falls into contradiction but that it needs contradiction in its very foundation in order to present itself to itself as coherent, intelligible, and rational. Kant's insistence that morality requires religion is, in Hegel's view, an affirmation of contradiction in the name of reason. This situation forces consciousness into a posture of "insincere shuffling" (schwindelndenBewegung)for consciousness is "aware of its contradiction and shiftiness."' Unable tO escape from contradiction or from the need to include contradiction within it, and unable to get beyond its own certainty that morality is the highest task for man and his only vantage point on reality, moral consciousness ends in hypocrisy'----a moral affirmation of itself which denies what it knows, that it cannot make itself cogent and intelligible, that it bases itself on reason and yet insults reason by claiming that, rational or not, it is morally necessary and this takes precedence over all other considerations. ' G, W. F. Hegel, Phanomenok~g/e des Ge/su,, edited by Johannes Hoffmeister (Hamburg, t95~), 454- Hereafter referred to as Philnomenolog'.e_Phenomenologyof Spirit. translated by A. V. Miller (Oxford, 1977), 374. Hereafter referred to as Miller. 9 Ph~nomeno/og/e, 444, Miller, 383 . [5o3] 504 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 24:4 OCTOBER ~986 The commentators, for the most part, agree with Hegel's critique of Kant, although there is not general agreement that all of Hegel's arrows hit their marks. Walsh, for instance, defends Kant against Hegel's accusation that "the moral man cannot be in earnest with morality''s lest by realizing himself morally he cause morality to disappear, and Loewenberg introduces a helpful and critical discussion of Hegel's use of the term 'hypocrisy'? Lauer allows that "as a presentation" of Kant's position, Hegel's analysis "may be superficial" and as "a critique it may be unfair.''5 Lauer, however, like most of the commentators deals with Hegel's analysis not as a critique which itself merits critical attention but as a stage in Hegel's extended argument in the Phenomeno/ogy. In the Phenomenok~gyHegel attempts to demonstrate, among other things, that at various stages in its development to scientific and all-encompassing truth consciousness operates according to "Reason" which deals with reality by fracturing it into subject and objectma move which results in dualisms of various kinds, internal contradictions, and which results in a consciousness divided against itself. Kant figures large in this error, and Kantian reason, which is portrayed as dividing and fracturing, is unfavorablyjuxtaposed with Hegelian spirit which integrates and synthesizes. Most of the commentators see Hegel's treatment of Kant's position in this light. Hyppolite refers to an "unself-conscious dialectic" and a "fraudulent dualism,'~ while Norman refers to "divisions and antagonisms" which attend an "alienated consciousness.''7 Kainz also emphasizes the theme of a contradictory consciousness which cannot escape contradiction and hypocrisy,s At least one commentator, however, looks at Hegel's critique of Kant's Moral Point of View as an issue itself deserving of attention rather than simply as a stage in Hegel's vast argument. Jonathan Robinson, in Duty and Hypocrisy in Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind, takes a stand squarely behind Hegel's critique of Kant. In Robinson's view, Kant's moral religion is unconvincing , a demonstration, as Hegel would have it, of the failure rather than the success of Kant's whole enterprise in the sphere of practical reason, s W. H. Walsh, Hegelian Ethics(New York: MacMillan, St. Martin's Press, t9C>9), 33. 4 j. Loewenberg, Hegel'sPhenomenology:Dialogueson the Life of Mind (LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Co., 1965), ~,7o--72. 5 Quentin Lauer, S...

The unknown Piaget: From the theory of exchange and co-operation toward the theory of knowledge

As I wish to present here another reading of the creator of genetic epistemology, and therefore another continuation of his work, first of all I have to talk briefly about the Piaget known by everyone.* I situate him in the period after Kuhn, after Lakatos, after Popper. Like these authors, whose names are on all lips today but a long time before them, he had discovered that it is impossible to give a satisfactory theory of science which is static. This always nascent enterprise cannot be understood without a dynamic approach. Once historicity is discovered anew (roughly, the Kuhnian moment), one has to start looking for a rationality, for a structure in this genesis. Piaget’s greatness lay in his desire to find the model of this dynamic structure in an established science: evolutionary biology. It is here that he far outdoes in precision Kuhn as well as Lakatos and Popper. The latter still set themselves on a meta-level and although entirely appropriating the facts of the history of science, try to construct out of these facts models imposed from the exterior on the history of science. Genetic epistemology is one of the first self-applications of science to itself. The same Piaget also made a point of giving this self-application an experimental basis in the genetic psychology of all Kantian categories. His work on perception, even if one has to combine it nowadays with the opposite work of Gibson, constitutes after all a serious refutation of logical empiricism deduced from empiricism itself. And these psycho-geneses of number, space, causality and chance allow us to overcome both the Humian position and the Kantian position in order to find in the active construction of multiple intermediate stages a source of knowledge transcending the contrast between experience and reason. I This Piaget as he looked upon himself and as he has been looked upon by those rare philosophers who condescended to take cognizance of his work is for me someone of great stature. Even his formal logic, as disputable as it is, hides interesting suggestions (Apostel, 1983). Yet the first Piaget always bewildered me and his.positions always found in me an opponent, admiring and loyal, but an opponent after all. Why?

The Development of Franz Brentano's Ethics (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 1 19 The last chapter, "Passivity and Activity in the Philosophical Anthropology of Karl Marx," discusses the results of the concept of praxis. If we see that man produces his own conditions of life, we are able to relate human spontaneity and receptivity as inseparable aspects of subjectivity (83). The recovery of spontaneity requires the abolition of alienation (89). Marx substitutes the concept of real corporeal man for Hegel's analyses of mental labor and abstract subjectivity (96). Marx goes beyond Kant and Hegel in that he understands how the ideals of freedom and community merely posited by the idealists are the real result of the process of life (io8). Marx's view of praxis is of "utmost philosophical significance" (l 12). Hoffman is correct to point to subjectivity as an ongoing problem in German idealism, although his account is too narrow. A crucial weakness is his failure to discuss Fichte, who was above all concerned with the synthesis, within the limits of human subjectivity, of the different forms of activity distinguished by Kant. Ii-German idealism is intrinsically unable to think the unity of theoretical and practical forms of subjectivity, this point must be shown with respect to Fichte, I am further hesitant to regard Marx's position as the positive outcome of German philosophy since, although I applaud recognition of its philosophical importance , I reject the inference that it differs fundamentally from the idealist tradition in which it emerges, To begin with, the concept of interest is not novel with Marx, but already constitutive of Kant's position, not to mention Fichte's. In the second place, while Marx did advance a view of corporeal man which he held to be absent in Hegel, like the other left Hegelians he was largely influenced in the formation of his positive view of subjectivity by Fichte. Thirdly, it is difficult to view the analysis of labor as indicative of a fundamental difference between Marx and Hegel unless one can explain away the latter's discussion of the "System of Needs" in the Philosophy o] Right, which is not mentioned here. Finally, while some forms of knowledge may require as their condition an end to alienation, that point cannot be correct for all forms of epistemology on pain of self-stultification. To conclude, Hoffman's good discussion of the problem of subjectivity in German idealism would have been more insightful if his account of this period had been fuller. Although he is correct to point to the philosophical significance of Marx's view, there seems no reason to regard it either as an intellectual panacea or as standing in some conceptual limbo beyond idealism. TOM ROCKMORE Fordham University Linda McAlister. The Development of Franz Brentano's Ethics. Atlantic Highland, N.J, Humanities Press, 1982. Pp. 171. $16.25 (cloth). Students of Brentano's ethics have long been faced with a dearth of coherent and reliable documentation of his views. During his lifetime, he published ,just one slender volume, the lecture Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntis. The longer work, Grundlegung und Aufbau der Ethik, did not appear until decades after his death. It consists of 120 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 23:1 JANUARY 1985 lecture notes edited in a free-handed fashion by followers who wished the work to conform to what they took to be his true and final views. In the Preface to her book, Professor McAlister tells us that it is her intention to trace and analyze the development of Brentano's ethical theory, to present background information for purposes of elucidation, and to furnish some critical comments on Brentano's philosophy. She is particularly concerned with distinguishing his earlier ethical theory, presented in the Ursprungand the notes used as the basis for Grundlegung, from the later view contained in the Nachlassand in later essays and letters. To do this, McAlister undertook the laborious task of examining all of the microfilms of Brentano's unpublished writings and checking the text of the Grundlegungagainst the lecture notes, doing us the service of providing a fuller and less distorted view of Brentano's actual development . In ~968, when she completed this volume as her dissertation, it served another...